Week 1

We just finished week one of the war movie, BOHICA.

It has been going much better than I thought it was going to considering we've lost about 6 crew members thus far. The boom op I hired we lost to blown out shoulder on Day 2, leading to the writer filling in for a day. Assistant Props quit or got fired at the exact same time. The sound mixer can't come back next week and the Scriptey has left us due to creative differences.

Here are a smattering of pictures from Alex HangaFault's Wiki-lens:


Jessie Props

DJ- my long-time boss, first-time director

A good shot of base camp.

Film is for pussies. We're shooting onto MEMORY CARDS. The future is now

Atmosphere

Setting up a shot. It's hotter than it looks

Borgnine and the Keg.

It's about a 90 yard hike up a steep incline to the set; I make that path about 15 times a day.

The three dirtiest men on set.

The Big Picture

Just finished day 3.

I was going to post about how hair-pullingly stressful the shoot has been.

I was going to post about how much my feet hurt from walking up a dirt mountain covered in rattlesnakes.

I was going to post about how hard it is to 'nudge' actors to get into their costumes and makeup when all they want to do is watch movies.

I was going to post about constantly telling people to not smoke in dry, tall grass fields that will burn us all in a second.

I was going to post about clashing with the make-up girl and the miscommunication between us.

I was going to post about how fast we're going and how there is absolutely no room for error.

But I just stopped at the service station to fill my gas tank and a paramedic was walking to his ambulance talking on his cell phone, "Oh man," he said, "What a day. What. A. Day…"

We're not panicked, but there is a definite feeling of urgency

(Dear readers, we're prepping this movie that shoots for the next two weeks. I regret to inform you that the succeeding blogs may contain an obscene amount of technical jargon. I apologize for offending anyone's sensibilities and will attempt to explain anything that may be unknown to the average joe or jane.)

Yesterday I was in charge of the script revisions, formatting shit in Final Draft and making sure the crew gets the blue pages.*

Had the big production meeting with (most of) the crew. It's sort of your first chance to use your douche radar and sniff out who might be the whiny bitches on set. The thing is this- at the ultra modified low non-existant budget level we are producing this movie at, the only time you get to be a bitch is when you don't accept the job. If you're here, it's only to work because no one is making any money on this show.

Still, regardless of accepting the job, there are people that when they get on set will talk for hours about how much better everything was on another set. [FOG HORN]

Also talked with HanjaWalt and the DP about the editorial workflow… er…they talked mostly, I absorbed. Good Ol' HanjaWalt knows what he's doing.

I might be in charge of the production cube** this time out, which is fun, but now I just have to make sure I avoid getting GD walkie duty. WORST. JOB. EVER.

Dropped off a script at comedysportz for Megan Kellie, who got cast as the Medic. Lucky for her it was written as a red-headed female because she's got one of the best lines in the movie(the last one), and I would have loved to show up in the last minute of the movie, grinning like an asshole.

When I got home, I cut up some college-ruled notebook paper and bound a little pocket journal. More flexible than the moleskin, less sturdy, but fits perfectly in my pocket. It's sort of a last hurrah of creativity before production and all the running around humping folding tables and sandbags starts...









* Script revisions are printed on different color paper; so after the initial White script you go to: Blue, Pink, Yellow, Green, Goldenrod, Buff, Salmon, Cherry, Tan, and Gray.

** The cube truck usually has directors chairs, folding tables, trash cans, butt cans, layout board, folding chairs, pop-up tents, and other assorted production supplies, not department specific.

Why Johnny Moxon was a Genius

I have very clear and happy memories of going to see "Varsity Blues" during a theater festival in high school. We were in shittown Escondido, where a group of my friends and I had been acosted by a gang who called themselves, no joke, "That 70s Show," right before we presented two scenes from "Much Ado About Nothing."

After we did our scenes for a thousand screaming, over-applauding, drama geeks, we decided to go see "Varsity Blues" at the nearby, rundown strip mall. What I remember so clearly is that we all weren't 17 years old so we couldn't get in and our drama teacher capital-B BITCHED out the manager of the theater to get us in. It was awesome.

For those that haven't seen the movie, Johnny Moxon(James van Der Beek) is the second string quarterback for the West Canaan Coyotes(Kye-oats), the best high school football team in west Texas. Paul Walker is the starting quarterback and the hero of the school.

West Canaan is a town that shuts down for the football games. They live and breathe football, yet Johnny Moxon is perfectly happy going to school and being smart and getting a scholarship to Brown University. He's smart and doesn't need football to get out of West Canaan. Now, things change once Paul Walker gets hurt and Johnny has to become the star quarterback and suddenly has to deal with fame and Jon Voight and whipped cream bikinis. In the end, Johnny Moxon gets his scholarship to Brown, wins the big game, and gets the girl.

My point is this- at some point, the director needs to clearly show the audience that Johnny Moxon is exceptionally smart. Just saying, "Ah wanna go ta Brown," in his southern drawl doesn't quite do it. The director needed to make the audience believe, without a doubt, that Johnny Moxon was smart enough to get a full scholarship to Brown University.

To do this, Johhny is shown reading a book, stealthily tucked inside the binder of football plays he is supposed to be studying. The book he is reading represents such innovative thinking, creative writing, and unmatched intelligence.

That book is "Slaughterhouse-5."

Making REAL Money

So I've been looking to buy a metal detector this past week because I really want to go out on the beach and start making some REAL money. Know what I'm saying, son? The Benjamins? Booyah. Y'all Pirates know me real well, dontcha!

My obsession with being a beach comber started last summer when I was working on that amazing reality show "The Beach." We shot during the two busiest weekends of the year at Huntington Beach (Surf City USA, for real): Memorial Day weekend, the beginning of summer; and July 4th weekend, the biggest swingingest day of the year in my opinion. My job was to haul a Radio Flyer wagon with all-terrain wheels, loaded to the splinters, through the sand and people, just generally backing-up production.

I would say it was a shit job except for the fact that I was on the beach most of the summer, fifteen minutes from my house; besides a few days, it was really pretty rad.

So on the Sunday of these two weekends, a bunch of old timers would show up around 3PM, as the crowds thinned to hit the bars on Main St, with their metal detectors swinging and their little metal scoops hanging from their belts. Every few minutes they would stoop down, sift the sand for a minute and then place something in a small mesh bag.

Since I was bored and they were still shooting Take 14 (it was a "reality" show), I walked over to one of the old dudes and asked him about his hobby and how often he would find anything.

Turns out, he finds TONS of stuff. Usually about five dollars in change and rings and necklaces and belt buckles and cell phones and iPods. Memorial Day and Independence Day are like gold mines. He told me stories of being approached by kids to help them find their lost keys.* Apparently, he and a few other of the beach combers keep lobbying the city to put up a bulletin board to help them find homes for the things they find. I guess even though he's probably got a couple thousand dollars worth of rings, he won't sell them because they belong to somebody.

The most inspiring story he told was that he found a local Huntington High class ring in the sand and went about trying to find it's owner. Turns out it had belonged to a kid that joined the marines and was just sent over to Iraq. The old guy was in the process of contacting his unit so he could send him the ring.

As far as hobbies go, it's a somewhat expensive one. With most detectors costing between $500 - $1000, and lest we forget, there weren't really any pirates or Spanish ships on the west coast so it's not like I would be shooting for gold.

But a sandy BlackBerry would be pretty cool too.**




* Also, he said some rather awkwardly bigoted things about the Asian kids he would help.
** Sandy Blackberry won an AVN award last year.

What’s it take to get a Giant Squid to Attack this GD City?

Seriously guys. I've been dumping nuclear waste into the ocean for the last sixteen years. I use too much hairspray, and other PCBs, and I keep the microwave door open when it's on. WTF, right?

I've even invested in private oceanic drilling firms to help widen cracks in the earth's crust in the hopes that some lava will force a Giant Squid from the depths, angering it to the point where it will wrap itself around the Golden Gate Bridge or the Brooklyn Bridge, or the Eiffel Tower. What's the deal?

Early last year, I invested in numerous nuclear reactors across the coasts of major accident-prone industrial countries. You'd think that one of them would contaminate Giant Squid infested waters at some point right?

My philanthropy to various shadow corporations for illegal marine life testing has gone unrewarded(unless you count the wonderful hemp tote bag I received for donating at the 'angel' level). Donations to nefarious meglomaniacal terrorist factions show nary a ripple in the water. Even the pennies I throw at the most sinister looking hobos result in nothing, but a wet dog smell from their aching fingers.

The years I've dreamed of a Giant Squid ravaging a coastal city to the horror of it's longshoreman and assorted street vendors. I wish to gaze upon headlines gracing DrudgeReport of a collassal calamari crushing city buses in it's mighty radioactive tentacles. I long for the carnage caused by this beast from the cold, black depths tearing skyscrapers like short ribs.

But nooooooo….I sit here in my condominium in Santa Barbara watching people ride their bikes on the boardwalk and have delicious barbeques; unknowingly lucky for living another day not being devoured by a giant squid.

[sigh]

Post and Prep

PostWrap Blog the End AKA BOHICA prepblog001

Thursday night we screened the pot documentary for a baker's dozen of students at USC Cinema School. It went really well, we got good responses all around. I didn't know it was going to happen, so I got dragged into the Q & A panel after the screening in which my producer railed about States rights and at one point I thought he was going to drop kick one of the students questioning the legality of our documentary.

It's important to note that five minutes before we left, I finished my work on the film. Like, FOR REAL. I thought the day would never come. I've got a couple more days to media manage the whole thing, output the final cut for color correction and sound mixing, wrap out our editing suite, and get things rolling into our next project, which starts shooting in two weeks.

I'm going to try and use my newly found free time to blog a little. A year and a half ago, when we were prepping for the viking funeral that was Suffering Man's Charity, I posted some inane prep blogs, so why not continue the trend this time around. I'm getting more and more excited about production starting on this new as I helped develop it from the very very beginning.

The easiest way to describe it is "The Breakfast Club in a foxhole."

I also got a promotion and a pay-cut. How does that work? Well, this war movie has about a quarter of the budget of the pot doc, so even though I'll be playing a more important role(yay! more stress!) I'm not going to be making much doing it. Which is fine as it's only a two week shoot in the desert. It would be better if it was a two week shoot in the dessert.

Also, for my fellow nerdlings out there, you may or may not remember me gushing about the fact that I have worked with one of the producers from The American Astronaut, which is, like, holy shit, one of the greatest low-fi, sci-fi, rock musical indie films I've ever seen. Well, we're working with him again and he brought the art director along with him. For those that have seen The American Astronaut you know that it's a superbly designed film and this is a big deal for a geek like me. For those that haven't- GO BUY IT.

Hertz Donut.

Secret Handshake Motherfuckers

My girlfriend and I joined a couple of friends in Playa Del Rey last night to go swing dancing. It was a blast, except for the guy with the bad case of gay-mouth that danced with my girlfriend and made her really uncomfortable with all his weird posing and pseudo-fancy dance moves.

The rendezvous was held at the Westchester Elks Lodge #701.

I had never been to an Elks Lodge before, or for that matter, a Knights of Columbus meetinghouse, a Freemasons Temple, or a Kiwanis Club, Shriners Shrine, or Rotary Clubhouse.

But it did make me wonder what happened to all these fraternal organizations. The still exist, you still hear about them, and they clearly still have members because at the Elks Lodge there was a big wall of the Grand Exalted Ruler, Tiler, Organist, Lecturing Knight, all wearing weird bangle things around their necks.

A quick gander on Wikipedia gives us this amazing first paragraph on the Elks:

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks had modest beginnings in 1868 as a social club (then called the "Jolly Corks") established as a private club to elude New York City laws governing the opening hours of public taverns. Early members were members of theatrical performing troupes in New York City. It has since evolved into a major American fraternal, charitable, and service order with more than a million members, both men and women, throughout the United States. Current members are required to be U.S. citizens over the age of 21 and believe in God.

Sooooo...apparently it started as a way to skirt drinking laws? That's awesome. I guess I shouldn't be so hard on people in Greek fraternities that join them just to drink because apparently that's why everyone else joins them and it's why they exist in the first place.

But I've come to a significant crossroads, a dilemma that I require help to understand my next course of action. Here are my two options to be weighed very carefully:

1.) Do I join the Elks or the Shriners or the Lions Club and being the youngest person in their ranks, rise to power quickly and rule over them for the next fifty years?

OR

2.) Start my own fraternal "service" organization and with my cabal of strong, young men, swiftly and violently destroy all factions in the vicinity that may oppose our rule?

The second question brings up so many more options, like, what do we call ourselves? Do we answer to a Supreme Being? Are we murderous, theiving pirates, or benevolent and protecting as the Elks are? Do we get funny hats like those tools in the Shriners or do we wear tiny secret lapel pins like the Illuminati? Do we engage in human sacrifices, or have bake sales?

Anyone willing to help and/or join my organization should chime in with their opinions. Does anyone know any Elks or Lions? Masons or Kiwanis? What the fuck is a Kiwani?

Your secrets are safe with me, until I use them to destroy you and usurp your power.